Shopping for my guy

Since hearing about other people shopping, mostly is just as interesting as reading that Paris Hilton’s got a new dog (oh, that actually made headlines not long ago). However, shopping in Asia almost seem to be considered a sport. In addition, Jonas hasn’t really had time to get new clothes since we came here, so we decided to devote the entire weekend finding nice shirts, new sandals and T-shirts for him. I hence started the weekend with a nice lunch with my friend at the big shopping center Wisma Ataria, which is combined with the Japanese Takashimaya and local Ion shopping center on Orchard road, to do some digging for the next day.

Entrance to Ion at Orchard

I also ended up a in a Japanese house ware sale  

On the way back to Springbloom, I passed Mustafa center which I’d heard had everything. This was true.

One of the lanes with spices; I think it must be around 1000 different kinds

It was lanes after lanes on floor after floor with clothes, electronics, spices, gold, vegetables, plastic containers, cleaning equipment, oil, flowers, rice, perfume, candy etc etc etc.. Leaving Japan I was actually worried about not having the same selection of goods in Singapore. I can just say that with places like Mustafa center in the pic, there’s actually more to choose from.

Part of the selection of rice; I just wanted white or brown..

At the food section, I seriously didn’t know half of the stuff. I hence cornered several different women in saris (they looked like they knew what they were doing), asking them ‘what is this?’, ‘how do you cook it?’, ‘what does it go with?’ and so on. In the end I had a small fan club at each section wishing me luck and giving me recipes, even waving when I passed. Truly friendly people!

Am still not entirely sure what this is, but one of the women said I could fry it. Probably have some googling to do ;)

I’ve never seen baby peppers before and they are really good!

 

A full tray of PEALED garlic cloves was just over a dollar; amazing prices

And then I found olives.. For those of you who know me well, no need to say that we currently have green and black olives marinating everywhere ;)

Black olives with oregano and garlic + green ones with lemon and rosmarin; all are topped up with olive oil, salt and pepper

What I thought were beans, lentils and peas were actually peas, beans and lentils.. I think.. Or something like that..

The Saturday was spent working on Jonas’ tan, so we had breakfast and a few hours by the pool.

J by the pool; the tan is coming along slowly but surely as it should

Then we plunged in to Wisma Ataria, went on to Takashimaya and finally Ion, with a quick pit stop at Food Republic for outstanding red and green chicken curry. It was so spicy that I almost lost a contact in my meal, since I was literally sweating on my eyeballs.

Taking a break in between dishes at the Thai restaurant

 

At 21.30 and after almost eight hours we stumbled in to Din Mae Fung with several bags full of men’s clothing. We had really great food and were disturbing the peace by giggling loudly of tiredness, that we got the evil eye of several of the guests and waiters. This made us giggle even more.  

Jonas with a great noodle dish

The next day, we of course also had to fully check out our local shopping mall NEX for male stuff. Walking there I was really fascinated by how clean it was at our neighbor HDB:s (government owned houses) ground floors. This would have been sprayed with tags and outstanding language in Sweden. Here walls are clean or covered by neat paintings in bright colors sponsored by different businesses.

The clean house bases of the HDB:s

Nice motif on a designated wall

Since it’s of course only me who’s food sensitive (bulls***), we started off by having brunch.

Dry dumplings with soup on the side and soy sauce with fresh ginger at NEX

We then finally found sandals for Jonas in his size which has been rather troublesome. He however got two very nice pairs, so he actually now has three pairs in total (I have seven). We then saw the coolest shoes [besides the Converse model in Tokyo with a proper ‘camel toe’ ;)], which have been around for a while, but I haven’t spotted them in a store before. I think they are amazing.

Toe running shoes

To not entirely devote the weekend to the penis population in our relationship, I also got a manicure and pedicure with ‘gold nails’ to my new ‘gold’ sandals. I further invested in three new nail polishes in ‘kiwi’ and ‘cherry’, just because it sounded so nice and summery. It doesn't really get more girlish than that.

Dinner at Food Junction on the 4^th floor in NEX

We then went for Chinese dinner at Food Junction, which was followed by the movies with The Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It was actually surprisingly good, although the main ape reminded a bit about a former colleague.

J was also very happy about the drain cleaner; after ten years together, I'm still surprised regarding some of the things which put a smile on his face ;)

The next goal is to take Jonas to Mustafa center. That’ll be very interesting and I pray we get out of there alive. 

Nothing with eyes, nothing raw and nothing alive?

As I have established before: food is very important to feeling at home to most Swedes. From the first time I moved abroad to Barcelona, via all over Norway to the U. K. with pit stops in Grenoble, Nijmegen and Roskilde/Copenhagen to end up in Tokyo and now finally in Singapore, the food has really been key to avoid feeling lost. As a dear old friend once put it: 

‘I don’t want to have food that have had eyes’.

 

A typical veggie dish that we have started having almost every evening now: SALAD!!

Spain was no trouble at all, since we’re very custom to any Mediterranean food in Sweden. Norway was also fine and but it was then almost necessary to extend to have fish. However, after having ‘römme’ porridge (boiled crème fresh until it becomes similar to wall paper glue), sheep meat (boiled for hours on end, until it’s almost like rubber and smells like an old, wet cardigan) and swede mash (smells like bad armpits), I came up with an additional, very reasonable demand:  

‘I don’t want food that will stick to the wall when thrown upon it, bounces back in my hand if dropped on the floor, or smells like it needed deodorant weeks ago’.  

When I met Jonas after being in the U. K. for 6 h:s 10 years ago, the rule about stuff with eyes went in the pooper. I was still however very reluctant to have intestine food until we came to Norway together and had outstanding smoked reindeer heart. I also tried roasted cod fish tongue btw and it was delish, so nothing bad about our neighbor nation in that sense. I then changed my preferences, apart from of course fish (sushi, herring and lax), to:

‘I don't want anything raw’.

 

Would probably still be a bit hesitant to eat at floor 3..

When we left Europe for Asia and arrived in Tokyo, I needed to both change on the raw bit, but also include eyes in the food. It really freaked me out at first, but since I had told my Japanese colleagues that we actually make pudding out of pigs’ blood in Sweden and have it with jam, as well as having rotten fish that smells so bad you’re only allowed to eat it at a certain time of the year, I really had very little defense left. Therefore, I’ve had things like raw, slippery eel babies in cold salty sauce (it was the entire eel, with head and everything), raw octopus suction cups and raw, sliced horse meat. Neither of these were favorites, but refusing to taste does signal ‘spoilt baby brat’. Hence the rules had once again to be changed to: 

‘I don't want anything alive’.  

 

Raw shrimps with other selective raw fish: sashimi

Raw octopus suction cups in Tsukiji

 

Raw fish and caviar in a sahimi bento (food box) in Tsukiji

Regarding the raw things, and besides all the lovely kinds of fish for any kind of sushi and sashimi, the most interesting was probably the chicken sashimi = raw chicken. It’s mostly quickly turned skewers with wasabi, horse raddish and soy sauce on the side and you eat all the parts of the chicken. This includes the ass (not the asshole, just the ‘outside ass’ part), breasts, gristle (according to Wiki it’s: ‘tough cartilaginous, tendinous or fibrous matter’ mmm..), heart, liver (this is completely raw btw), wings, skin and for instance the ovaries with unhatched eggs inside. It sounds like ‘Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom’, but it’s actually really good.

Raw chicken ovaries with the unhatched eggs attached: chicken sahimi 

 

More chicken sashimi, where the breast meat has quickly been turned over a grill and is raw in the middle, with the traditional wasabi

Moving to Singapore, made me even scrap the ‘nothing alive’ bit, since we discovered oysters. They have frequent oyster nights, when an oyster is basically S$1 (~5 SEK, 50 JPY, 0.5 Euro) and comes with garlic bread, Tabasco and lemon. I at first thought it was quite nasty spraying lemon on them, seeing how they curl up which is the typical sign of them being alive and I really thought they’d taste like cold, slimy snort from the ocean. But they were truly fantastic!

Gigantic Singaporean oyster

Jonas enjoying nice wine, oysters and the company ;)

There are also all kinds of things here which you’re apparently always supposed to buy alive, but then kill at home in your own kitchen. This way you’ll know it’s fresh. Especially shellfish like crabs, lobsters, prawns and muscles. We wanted to find sea crayfish for the party at Chateau de Thoréns but after looking for hours of something similar, I gave up. I then started checking out the crabs and smaller lobsters, who looked really nice. However, the whole idea of taking them home, boiling them to death in my popcorn pot, while manually pressing down the lid and hearing the animal fight for its life in there, made me want to casually throw up a little bit. 

 

Alive slipper lobster for home cooking

Besides, I’m still scarred by my husband proudly presenting 40 (!!!) huge crabs after a perfectly nice Sunday at his parents. The idea was for us to cook them ourselves. Well into the night after hours of listening to the gurgling from the animals, having cooked ones in the bathtub and chasing after alive ones who tried to escape torture in my enormous soup pot, will forever be a dark patch in the Kalleback history. 

In Singapore I’d be very surprised if we’ve seen even half so far however. There’s endless Malay and Chinese food like chicken feet soup (soup with whole chicken feet in it), chicken soup (soup and a whole chicken in it) or fish soup (soup and a whole fish in it), which I’ve deliberately tried to avoid so far. Another weird thing is the completely black chicken; it’s really black, even when it’s alive and I just think it looks truly bonkers. Might be good though. 

Singaporean black chicken

I’ve tried the black eggs = fermented eggs = rotten eggs and they were no 10-pointer and I still have huge problems with eating insects unless they are covered in chocolate. At least these dishes are cooked and the animals are very dead.

To sum up, the old rules were basically:

• ·        Nothing with eyes + Jonas from Onsala → nothing raw
• ·        Nothing raw + Asia → nothing alive
• ·        Nothing alive + Singapore → bon appetite

However, I’m firmly stipulating the new rule:

I don't want any insects or feet in any form.

 

A bag of fish fins anyone?

And maybe also that all coriander should be banned from cooking in general. Seriously though, if you want your food to taste like Palmolive soap, why not just at least have the decency to add some Schwarzkopf shampoo. It’d surely be better for your guests’ hair.  

Bloody coriander should be banned and it's really everywhere

  

Crayfish party, high tea and to do lists

Last Friday started off @ the smashing chateau Thoréns in Dover Park View with late crayfish dinner, a lot of snaps, songs and herring! The most fabulous party hats were given to all the boys (silver glitter) and girls (pink glitter), where of course a Viking host needs nothing less than a Viking hat.

I’d love to wear something like this to work

 

Some people just want it all

J and I still have glitter in the oddest places.. Thank you Claudia and David! One thought though: is it male or female crayfish we normally have? If it’s only male, would it not be outstanding to rename it to ‘gayfish party’ instead? Maybe not politically correct, but it’s really funny. 

Saturday was very calm and we slept in for a long time, considering we left at 5.00. Then it was ‘the usual’ (feel great to be able to write that!) pool hang-around just swimming, reading and sleeping in the shade almost all day. We are starting to master the art of properly relaxing, which for me is probably the 1^st time ever. Before, I’ve always had these ‘have to:s’ hanging over me like ‘I have to read this’ or ‘I have to write that’ and ‘I have to practice presenting the latest results’ and so on. This has been the case every break or weekend for the past 12 years to be honest, so I have not been truly off without producing or stressing out about not producing during this time. Looking at the past 7 years alone, it was not unusual to have 10 appointments every day. Then we of course want a rich social life, so we’ve been trying to cram in all the fun stuff during the weekends, since we’ve been way to tired meeting up with people during the weeks. This has made me feel very restless, since I’ve always been running towards the next step and not really been able to stay in the moment. Now, I still have a desire to do things, but it’s more on a ‘because I want to’ rather than ‘because I have to’ basis. In the end, ‘being creative’ is a hugely different compared to ‘being productive’. I don’t complain about being busy, I actually really like it, but it needs to be with tasks which are fun or hard work which pays off. Since there is absolutely no point getting bitter over previous situations, I’ve decided to store it in my memory under the chapter ‘the very busy period where I learned shitloads’ and make sure things will be different in the future. 

After the pool we dressed up and walked over to Chomp Chomp (restaurant/food court/entertainment area) and took a table at a small grill house. Since, we’ve still not had red meat at home yet, we went for two rare steaks with divine mushroom sauce, French fries and salad. We then tried out going back by a local bus (stops right outside our condo) and embarked on popping popcorns and decided on movie night. We were asleep by 21.30. 

Next week's blog will be all about food, but this is for instance a really nice dish one can have at a food court for ca 15 SEK (150 JPY, 1.5 Euro): chicken porridge

The next day again started off by the pool, with small luxuries like the Sunday issue of New York Times which arrives for free to every doorstep at the Springbloom. It’s actually quite educating to read about global art shows and political statements. My new goal is to learn more about the economy, since I honestly know f*** all. We then changed to nice clothes and arrived with a taxi at The Swisshôtel to have the splendid cultural must on Sundays in Singapore: high tea.

My lovely Jonas at the entrance of The Swisshôtel

 
Traditionally 'high tea' was basically dinner served for workers at a high table, while here it is a remarkable buffet with a dessert section to die for, mostly at fancy hotels. In this case we were meeting friends at the Equinox restaurant at the 70^th floor with 360° panorama windows and view over Singapore city.

View from our window table at the 70^th floor at Equinox over the Singaporean Marina

Before I knew where the expression ‘high tea’ came from, I actually thought it was because it was served at a sky restaurant ;) The place itself was designed like an amphitheater and the floor to ceiling height was probably around 10 m. The food was fine and there were a lot to choose from, but it was the desserts and the chocolate and truffle tea I chose, which were truly amazing.

Jonas at the first round of food at the table

I had chocolate bisconi dipped in chocolate fondue, lemon curd cake, chocolate ice cream, straw- and raspberry tart, apple strudel, walnut and saffron pastry, grapes, mini blueberry muffins with mint chocolate, scones with cream and blackcurrant jam, honey and Galia melon, pineapple- and strawberry sorbet with chocolate- and caramel topping.

Round 1: it might not look like much, but it was just fantastic

After this visit, I’ve decided it’s highly unnecessary to fill at the stomach with proper food at high tea. Next time I’m only going for the desserts; I really don’t see any problem either, as long as I keep averaging 5 km in the pool a week. As I wrote on FB, I got so full I couldn't feel my elbows, and then fell asleep at 20.00.

The following Monday was actually the first day which was quite rainy since we came. Due to the heavy thunder storms it felt a bit too wild and crazy to hit the pool for the daily lapses; besides, I think I might still have been sugar-high. I therefore started watching all the new episodes of Parenthood, The Killing, Criminal minds, CSI LV and NY, Dark Blue, Southland, Game of Thrones and True Blood that I haven’t been able to see in Tokyo. I had also dragged out every piece of paper in the entire house, which in the end was a neat approximately half a meter high pile. Eight hours later after watching Sookie make out with Alexander Skarsgard, various bad/good guys being shot to death by all kinds of police and a very disturbing sex scene with a 40 year old little person (I mean ‘dwarf’, but I don’t think it’s nice to be so blunt), we we’re on. We’d gone from as lost as a Japanese person at a bar fight to having complete control over the paper trail of our lives in three countries. I had also survived a chili lunch, which could easily start a jet engine (OK Maija, it was not as bad as the time I mistook sambal olek for tomato puré and added four table spoons in the tomato soup we were cooking, but almost).

Anyways, I’d managed to prepare a respectable post-it-lay-out-a-la-Hallgerd of what had to be done. It included sorting out manuscripts, optician visits, planning a trip to Koh Samui, monitoring my cocktail tomato- and cucumber project, planning what additional furniture and items were needed for our home, prepare for a moving in party, finding anti-moist T-shirts, figure out where to buy olives/fefferoni/chick peas/kidney-, black-, white beans to cook myself and so on. 

 

One of the projects: the cocktail tomatoes will hopefully be ready in a year or so..

Another project: why not sort out a separate onion box? Much more practical than having them spreading all kinds of shit in the vegetable compartment in the fridge

Then it’s of course the main business regarding my occupation which really starts with a simple list which seems to take a hell of a lot of time:

1.      Go through all in boxes and change my email to karinh.eurenius1980@gmail.com at all contacts.
2.      Find and contact recruitment bureaus in Singapore.
3.      List desired future employers and contact them directly.  

The main thing is that it sucks having to stay inside in front of the computer, since I need internet for most of the above, when I can sit outside in the sun.. OK, here it’s shade, but you get the pic. I think it’s the whole Nordic mentality, where I expect that soon the summer will be gone to make room for cold and dark days and nights, and I have to make every possible moment outdoors count. Maybe I’ll let it go sometime in November when it’s still sunny at 7.30 every morning and 35°C?

 

From the Springbloom gardens: this kind of greenery will be weird but very welcomed in November! 

My favorite gadgets at the moment: towel, swim goggles, oranges and the fantastic flowers falling all over after a rain storm 

Social life, professional life and personal life

During the month we have now spent in our new apartment and roughly the month and a half in Singapore, we have really been so blessed meeting a lot of fun, interesting and giving people. We have been to several dinner parties, where a fab evening at ‘casa de Wanland’ with unforgettable discussions, plenty of laughter and an amazing lemon/meringue pie was followed by an evening at Springbloom with very interesting cooking (maybe I should start making new recipes once before shoving them down friends’ throats..), a lot of music and fantastic people. Thank you David, Claudia, Anna and Micke!

Jonas cutting the hands down most fluffy dessert I’ve ever tasted!

We also had a really mind blowing evening, starting out at the 62^nd floor at the sky bar Altitude (http://www.theskybars.com/1-altitude-sky-bar-in-singapore/) with colleagues from Tokyo and new friends. We were lucky to get a ‘window’ table to both J’s and my sort of scared-of-heights-issues (there’s no roof and only ca 1.2 m glass walls..). It felt truly spectacular to sit and look down on Marina Bay Sands hotel and have a view over the Singapore Flyer along with the Art and Science museum and the mighty casino in front of it all. We then ended up in an almost ‘Creole’-styled restaurant in a very cozy little neighborhood and had homemade hamburgers and a cheese platter I could probably sell a kidney for. The wine was also truly stunning and there was no end to jokes about life and careers, good music and sharing food around the table. Then we went off to a smaller club on one of the lower roof tops and it was like being transferred to a nice Thailand joint. Thank you Tobias and Reinout!

A pretty crappy pic of the view at Altitude from my iPhone, but go to the link above to see some really cool shots

We were also invited to friends of our friends for a crayfish party. For Swedish people it’s very important that we eat these animals in the end of the summer, even though I know some Asian groups think that this is the same as eating rats. I’m fully aware that these red, spider-like things do live in the sewers here sometimes, but in Sweden they are typically found in rivers, lakes and the sea. It’s a delicacy and considering all the non-typical-Scandinavian stuff I’ve been having the past 2 years (raw chicken ovaries with the unhatched egg in it, fish eyes in a soup or pizza with spaghetti on it), I will listen to no complains about our crayfish parties. Besides, you get a lot of snaps, cheese, hard bread, caviar, herrings and salads with it, so if the crayfish itself are hard to get over, you’ll at least not leave a Swedish crayfish party hungry. This was for instance not the case the first time I was having toriniku in Japan (marinated, fried/grilled chicken), and was served ALL the pieces of the bird; I had green beans and beer. Anyways, with a Swedish/Singaporean host couple, lovely new friends, Swedish snaps songs, national anthems from at least four countries and the traditional seriously ridiculous hats, it was a blast; thank you Pontus and Carmen!

Well, you get the picture, no pun intended ;)  

I have really tried to take some time and think about what I want to do next, so that I’ll not just rush into something because I think I have to. For once, I have this great opportunity to take it easy and really evaluate what would make me happy and I will make the most of it. Further, considering I have a lot of small personal projects which I’ve never really had time to do before, I find this time really rewarding. Some of it is of course work related issues like organizing profiles online, writing CVs and sorting out new email addresses (and linking them to both my phone and computer, when the interface sometimes flips over to Japanese.. hallelujah..). Things like this really takes some time, especially if you are not 100% sure what you want to do. I have also had meetings with people at National University of Singapore (NUS), The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) within Biopolis and have raised the questions of finding a good recruitment company here. I’m further off for an interview next week and have so far been offered two positions, but I need some more time to think about it. Thank you Yin Thai, Tim, Ian and Anette!   

From one of the meetings at NUS; I think some palm trees would do wonders for Kemigarden at Chalmers (where it’s currently as fun as being poked in the eye with a sharp stick)

The professional life has of course been ongoing for Jonas and he’s now been at the new office for a bit over a month. He’s working hard, but making good progress, so I’m very confident this was the right move for both of us. In addition, being able to come home at a reasonable hour, have a swim and then home cooked dinner together almost every day, really makes a difference compared to Tokyo. I’m very glad that we have been able to takes this time and spend it together, even though it sounds as if we’re a couple of 80 year-olds. After all the craziness in Tokyo, it’s just nice with some very normal routines.

I have also just been able to sit and read what I want, because I have the time to do so and not feel the pressure of having to catch up on the latest articles being published within my field or study for a test or an exam. That hasn’t really been the case since I was a teenager. And to cook what I want, when I want and especially eat huge heaps of salad and fruit and not worry about contamination. And buy a pineapple for almost no money! And swim, which has really become such a nice and relaxing part of the day. I truly love our pools!

A nice salad for dinner in the end of the day is priceless when it’s so hot

So to finish off this week’s report: even though we’re in a country where there are lizards inside the houses, no one knows what a coffee filter is and it actually seems to be quite popular with uni-brows, we’ll be fine.      

  

Norway and What I miss from Japan and like about Singapore

I would like to start this text in the most honest way I can: I know I haven't written in a while. It was pointed out by so  many of you caring and devastated people out there saying things like 'please give me something unrelated to the horror in our neighbor country to read about asap' and 'just put another of your texts up and make me laugh with you for a second, 'cause I cannot read another line about the massacre'. I just got numb when I heard about Norway. Nothing seemed to matter, but to get hold of the people I knew there and make sure they were safe; being away from Sweden made me feel like this was happening 'at home'. My family and I were fortunate to have no one we knew get directly affected by the awful events, but our thoughts will be with those who were for a very long time. I feel very silly writing the following, but I will still post it. As much as the attack in Norway affected my stay in Singapore on a deep level staying in my mind for ever, I will also have recollection about the following.

Our dear friends Tomoko, Yumio and Aiko are of course the ones I miss most moving being away from Japan;. However, I've decided it's not 'good bye', but rather 'c u l8r' which is the tune, so even though I just recently got a bit misty and did actually shed maybe a tear or two, this blog will be about the things I miss the most.
Japanese metro awareness and sushi in Tsukiji is probably what I miss most about Tokyo. In Singapore, not too many understand the concept of standing still on one side and walk on the other to make it more convenient in an escalator. In Tokyo it’s almost frowned upon if you get it wrong. In addition, the actual metro trains are v small here and extremely packed; coming from Tokyo, with probably the best developed metro (and Oedo lines and JR..) in the world, would probably make anyone spoiled. I just really miss it. 

Something which is quite funny though is that on the metro here, people much have snapped up a few things from Japan. It for an example allowed sleeping in whatever position, at any time of the day.

Sleeping Singaporean

I’ve also take a vow of celibacy regarding sushi: I shall not have full desire to another country’s sushi as long as I shall live. Quite ridiculous, but once you’ve tasted Japanese sushi there’s just no way going back. I’m still in mourning over having to leave this important part of the previous diet, so it’s not out of the question to try it here, but I just can’t bear it right now. It’s too painful. However, I have firmly decided to replace the need for sushi with abusing fruit and vegetables on a highly strong, daily basis. I’ve also decided to buy at least one thing we haven’t tried every time I go for groceries. I mean, who knew you could eat aloe vera as a vegetable?    

Aloe vera

The fact that almost all newspapers in Singapore are in English is just fantastic! I’ve so missed being able to follow the news and knowing what headlines say, since EVERYTHING is written in Japanese in Japan. Here, we even get a newspaper every morning on our door step! I’ve never been so fascinated by what all the Tans, Pohs or Pongs are doing every day. It’s with less enthusiasm I read daily about the craziness in Japan; below is an article about a Japanese politician who basically thinks Japan brought on the March 11^th earthquake and tsunami, due to its people’s selfishness over the years. I hope he gets a chance to explain his point of view to the family members who lost children, wives, husbands, brothers, sisters and grandparents. Or maybe he should help cleaning up the nuclear power plant?   

Singaporean news in English

Another thing which is great about the communication here, is that they understand us in 90% of the cases and we understand their ‘Singlish’ in at least 40%. In addition, once they hear us, the people who can, become clearer (for the sake of the ‘slow’ westerners) and leave out the ‘la’, ‘mae’ and most of the Chinese words. They use those to bind the sentences together and hence they mean almost f*** all. That makes a huge difference, even though on the phone we often have to ask them to repeat slower, repeat what we think they are saying in our own word out loud and then wait for them to confirm. That part is also quite important to know, since confirmation here is simply ‘can’. This is not a can of something like soda or so, it’s simply an abbreviation of ‘I can’. And they pronounce it [ken]. So if you ask someone ‘Can you tell me the name of this bar?’ and they answer ‘Can [Ken]’, the name of the place is not Barbie’s boyfriend. You just have to ask ‘OK, what is it?’, to get your answer. Just to get it straight. 

I do miss the really cute, Japanese tourist items you can buy everywhere in Japan. Here there are a lot of stores which have typical Japanese things, but of course not at all as much. I was also quite worried that stores would not be as accessible as they are in Tokyo; it’s just nice to know you have a 24-hour noodles shacks around the corner, which often is just as busy at 04.00 on a Tuesday morning as at 19.00 on Saturday night, and that you can buy a liter of milk or aspirins basically around the clock even on Sundays. However, Singapore is not far behind. Most malls are open until 22.00 every day of the week, but many of the clubs close already at 03.00 = no all night-karaoke for us so far! Many of the convenience stores also close around 22.00, besides of course 7-11, but I miss Tokyo in that sense.    

Japanese inspired umbrellas

What I seriously do not miss is the extremely bad isolation in Japanese houses; Jonas once described it as a subtropical climate close to the heaters (situated in the ceiling btw, since everyone knows that’s ever so practical with hot air rising and all), so that you were hotter than hell on the top part of your head and your toes were blue in the winter time. Since you did need the hot AC for at least five months, vs. the cold AC for only two, it really didn’t make sense. In our current apartment it’s approximately the same temperature and humidity in the bedrooms as in an average Swedish green house. Therefore our plants grow about 5 cm a week and the buds I took from them yesterday now have 1 cm long roots. I’ve also let the seeds of yellow- and red cocktail tomatoes + sweet Indian cucumber dry on the window sill, and will try and plant them during next week.  

Money plants growing in our bedroom